KU music student publishes Latin American song book for children

Mirna Y. Cabrera, a DMA student studying choral conducting with Professor Paul Tucker, recently published a traditional Latin American song book and CD entitled A La Rueda,Rueda. With co-editor Martha E. Esquenazi, Cabrera helped create a book that explores Hispanic-American heritage and traditions through a collection of children's folk songs.

The book is illustrated with original Uruguayan art and includes thirty-four traditional songs for early childhood through the elementary grades. Both Esquenazi and Cabrera are of Cuban origin and have collected songs that will appeal to a wide audience. English translations, a pronunciation guide, and music curricular indices are included. An enclosed CD provides quality demonstration recordings of children singing from the greater Kansas City area singing the songs unaccompanied, as they are traditionally performed. The book is available on the Hal Leonard website at www.halleonard.com.

Mirna Y. Cabrera is a choral conductor specializing in early music, children's music, and world music. She was born in Holguin, Cuba, in 1968. She is a certified Kodaly music specialist trained in the U.S. and Hungary and has taught music for 20 years at all educational levels, from pre-Kinder to post-graduate. From 1999-2003, she was assistant then artistic director of the Austin Children's Chorus. She is completing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting at the University of Kansas in spring 2011, and currently directs the Oread Singers, a collegiate choir at the University of Kansas, as well as the Haskell Chorus at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas.

For more information, contact the KU School of Music at 785-864-9742. www.music.ku.edu

DOUGLAS COUNTY, 66044
Mirna Y. Cabrera, doctoral student studying choral conducting, daughter of Jesus and Mirna B. Cabrera of Miami, Florida. Cabrera attended high school at Andrews Academy in Berrien Springs, Michigan.